🏫 Teacher Portal

Build a Toad Abode

Make a cool, shady hiding place from a broken clay pot. A toad may use it as a daytime rest stop.

Memory Match: Backyard Friends

Find matching cards from Tootie's Backyard. Each match gives you another face, feather, wing, or tail to remember before you head outside.

Flower Pounding

Use fresh flowers and leaves to make colorful prints on fabric or paper. Ask a grown-up before picking anything.

Backyard Banquet

Help Tootie & Yoshi find the right foods for 25 North Louisiana wildlife species across three difficulty levels!

Grandma’s Garden Helpers

Sort the good bugs from the bad ones and help Grandma Rose, Tootie & Yoshi keep the garden thriving!

Tootie’s Toy Sort

Drag and drop 135+ North Louisiana species into the right habitats across 10 progressive levels!

Backyard Scientist Report

Count birds. Listen for frogs. Watch bugs. Write down what you find. Real scientists use observations from regular backyards, too.

Backyard Crossword

Use nature clues to fill in the squares. How many backyard words do you know?

Build a Bee Condo

Construct bamboo and wood apartments for solitary mason bees, the most efficient pollinators in the backyard.

Wildlife Word Search

Find all the hidden wildlife words lurking in the grid!

Decay Detective Log

Place a log in a shady corner and discover the entire secret world of decomposers living underneath — the cleanup crew of the forest floor.

Backyard Maze

Guide Tuffy the Titmouse through the backyard maze to find the feeder!

Stick Raft Racing

Build a miniature raft from sticks and a leaf sail, then race it in a puddle. You're solving the same problems ancient shipbuilders solved.

Backyard Coloring Book

Color your favorite backyard friends — Tootie, Yoshi, Gee the Anole, and more!

Build a Pollinator Garden

Design a living feast that feeds native bees, beetles, and hummingbirds from spring through fall — a real working wildlife habitat.

Build a Butterfly Nursery

A butterfly garden supports the full life cycle from egg to adult. The right host plants, warm basking rocks, and a mineral puddling spot make it work.

Nature Sun-Catchers

Seal petals, leaves, and seeds in contact paper, frame them in cardboard, and hang in a window. The Louisiana sun turns your backyard finds into stained glass.

Mud Painting

Mix Louisiana dirt and water to make natural earth paint, then decorate logs, rocks, and clay pots. The next rain erases it — leaving a blank canvas for next time.

Citizen Science: Report From Your Backyard

Real scientists need data from backyards across the country — and kids can provide it. Every bird you count and every frog call you hear goes into a database researchers actually use.

Solar Crayon Recycler

Build a foil-lined solar oven from a shoebox and use the Louisiana sun to melt broken crayons into brand-new rainbow-swirl crayons.

Seed Dispersal Challenge

Plants can't walk — so they've evolved amazing tricks. Study helicopter samaras and sticky hitchhikers, then engineer your own seed dispersal method using only natural materials.

What Makes a Good Neighbor?

Every backyard animal needs something from its neighbors. This discussion helps kids think about what animals need, what they give back, and what happens when one piece of the web goes missing.

Why Do Animals Hide?

Camouflage, mimicry, staying still, playing dead. Animals have more hiding tricks than most kids realize. This discussion unpacks the difference between hiding to survive and hiding to hunt.

If You Were a Bird, Where Would You Live?

Not every bird wants the same backyard. This discussion uses habitat preference to get kids thinking about why different animals need different things.

What Happened to the Fireflies?

Firefly numbers are dropping across North Louisiana. This discussion connects light pollution, lawn chemicals, and habitat loss to something kids actually remember seeing and miss.

Habitat Match Up

Nature Question Starter

Questions Kids Ask Mini Discussion Card Set

Wildlife Kindness Promise Poster